Mathews-1

Tyler Mathews

ENG 1201-503

Prof. Dunham

23 March 2019

The Sad Truth about Incarceration in America

Incarceration rates differ around the world, with the United States firmly holding

the highest numbers and many of those offenders have committed nonviolent offenses

and are struggling with addiction. Millions of children in the United States have one or

both of their parents currently incarcerated in prison or jail and I am one of those

children. More specifically, I am one of those children who has an incarcerated Father

due to addiction. I was born in December 2004 and by the time my Mom divorced my

biological Father in 2009, my Father had been to jail at least 16 times. My biological

Father always struggled with addiction and mental health issues and it led him down a

very bad path since his early teens. In 2009, only 3 months after my Mom filed for

divorce from him, my biological Father went out and got involved with two armed

robberies back to back seeking money for drugs which ultimately landed him in prison

for the first time. Since his release from his first prison term in 2015, he has been back

to prison a few times. He first remained out for about a year and a half and then was

sentenced to another year for parole violation because he was caught with

methamphetamine. His latest release from prison came in June 2018 and he has since

been caught with methamphetamine, heroin, and a firearm and has been back in prison

since November 2018 awaiting trial. He is facing about 10-12 years at this time.
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Many assume that all prisoners are created equally and that they deserve to be

where they are if they are breaking the law. It’s easy to believe that and not look deeper

into the issues that lie beneath the surface and explain how this is happening and to

whom. I believe that this begins and ends with the policies created with the War on

Drugs.

It is important to first understand more about the history of the War on Drugs to

gain a better understanding of how it has impacted incarceration in America. The War

on Drugs is a set of policies and laws that have created mandatory sentencing laws that

often require that drug abusers be sentenced to lengthy prison sentences, sometimes

more lengthy than violent offenders. The same policies that have given police more

authority to make decisions in regards as to who, when, where, and why they can stop

and search someone, which ultimately skews the populations of the inmates

themselves. While I am technically a statistic since my Father is incarcerated for

addiction –related crimes, I’m not a minority and they are the ones that have been the

biggest victims in this whole thing. The War on Drugs has caused mass incarceration of

addicts and minorities and broken up families in the United States.

Ojmarrh Mitchell and Michael Caudy are Associate Professors at the University

of South Florida that specialize in criminal justice and statistics. They conducted a

research study titled “Examining Racial Disparities in Drug Arrests” published in 2015.

Their research sought to test three of the most common theories of racial

discriminations in rates of drug arrests following the initiation of the War on Drugs, but

also included significant background information about the War on Drugs. The authors

further explain that the War on Drugs they speak of is the one launched by President
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Reagan in 1982 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986. The authors describe the

significant changes to US drug policy including the new focus on mid to low level

dealers and drug users along with previously targeted international efforts and the

emphasis on criminal sanctions rather than prevention, treatment, and harm reduction.

The authors further explain that low level offenders have long, mandatory sentences as

a means of suppressing drug use in the U.S. and with the government offering billions in

funding for State and local agencies to adopt tougher policies for sentencing and

arrests, many agencies and States did just that and helped to enforce the new policies.

These policies have produced mass incarceration and overcrowded prisons and

jails. In a report provided by Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, it was reported that

research found that since 1980 drug arrests in the United States have more than tripled,

with a very large number of those arrests being marijuana related. The research also

found that as a result of the policies to target lower-level offenders and mandatory

minimum sentencing laws, drug offenders represented nearly half or more of all inmates

by 2003. They found that many of those incarcerated for drug offenses had no known

violent histories and nearly 60% of all the offenders were low-level offenders, mainly

drug abusers. King and Mauer (2007) also pointed out the overwhelming costs

associated with sentencing and housing these offenders which has led to a crisis of

overflowing prisons.

In another article written by Eli Hager and Bill Keller (2017) introduces the

perspective of John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University, who disagrees with

the position that the policies created by the war on drugs is the main reason for mass

incarceration in the United States. In fact, he says that the reason mass incarceration
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has occurred is because of increasing crime. He uses the statistics from the Bureau of

Labor and Statistics that indicates that nonviolent inmates charged with drug-related

offenses only represent about 16% of the State prison population in New York and that

while he doesn’t disagree that they should have drug treatment, he believes that this

proves that the majority of prisoners aren’t in prison or jail for drug-related offenses.

Using those numbers, he says he debunks that beliefs that reducing the mandatory

minimum sentences for drug-related offenses will result in lowering the prison

population. However, Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow” and many

others rebut Pfaff’s belief because he uses the number to skew the outcome. More

than half of all offenders in the federal prisons in the United States are there for drug-

related offenses (Hager and Keller, 2017). Alexander also believes that beliefs like this

miss the entire point that the War on Drugs opened up the ability for the perception that

one race was worse than another and put a target on minorities’ backs for the police

and criminal justice system.

The changes brought about by the policies have targeted minorities and broken

up families. The Drug Policy Alliance (drug policy.org) provides up to date statistics and

facts regarding the impact on minorities. On two of their fact pages regarding the

statistics and minorities they list the drastically higher rates at which minorities are

incarcerated and point out the increased likelihood they will be searched, convicted, and

given harsher sentences for lower-level drug offenses. They also point out that the

evidence shows that prosecutors are double as likely to seek a mandatory minimum

sentence for an African-American.

Fig. 1 Difference in drug-related arrests between African-Americans and Caucasians

since 1980 (“Drug Arrest Rate per 100,000”)

They also touch on the effects of mass incarceration, providing the statistic of

nearly 3 million children in the U.S. in households where one or both of their parents are

in prison or jail, of which two-thirds of them are there for nonviolent offenses, with the

majority being for lower-level drug offenses. They also indicate more detrimental

impacts of those convictions on their records including loss of child custody, inability to

vote, employment, loans, and licensing, financial aid for school, public housing, and

assistance programs.

One example of this is provided by an article title “The War on Drugs = A War on

Women and Families” by Lenora Lapidus was published on the American Civil Liberties

Union (ACLU) website in June 2011. The article first addresses their main claims which

is that the War on Drugs has been devastating for women and their families, but more
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devastating to women of color due to the significant increases in the prosecution of

lower-level drug offenses, conviction and imprisonment rates, and mandatory minimum

sentences. Using an ACLU report titled “Caught in the Net”, the author provides actual

statistics that reported that since the policies have been put into place, the number of

women in prisons and jails has increased to close to twice that of the rates for men and

of those women in prison or jail, African-Americans were more than three times and

Hispanic women were 69% more likely to be incarcerated compared to white women

and of all women incarcerated, two-thirds are mothers. The author then addresses the

barriers they face when leaving prison including obtaining housing, employment,

education, and subsistence benefits and largely due to bans from assistance due to

prior drug convictions. Since minority women are disproportionately poor, they are

dependent on those benefits to meet their basic human needs. The author also uses a

specific case of a Minnesota woman to demonstrate how those policies affect families,

as often public housing complexes that tend to have a higher minority resident rate, ban

anyone with former drug convictions from being on their property, often causing families

to alienate themselves from one another or leave the safety of their homes to be with

those whom aren’t allowed to be there.

Another example is provided in an article written by Karina Schroeder and

published on Vera.org in February 2018. Using research reports, the author details that

approximately 2.5% or 6.1 million voters are unable to vote due to their past criminal

records and many have already served their prison terms. She further explained that

felony disenfranchisement isn’t equal for all, in fact African-Americans, who are already

overly involved in the criminal justice system, are more effected, to the tune of 1 in 13
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African Americans are unable to vote which is quadruple the number of other U/S

Citizens. Citing the report by The Sentencing Project again, she reported that some

states had specifically excluded crimes that were believed to be crimes more likely to be

committed by Caucasians and made the laws to apply to crimes more often to be

thought to be committed by African-Americans. She concludes the article reporting that

African-Americans make account for 38% of all Americans who are unable to vote in

America.

Those issues aren’t only seen with women offenders either. In fact, minority men

are just as effected as minority women. There is plentiful evidence and research that

indicates that racial inequalities are present in the courts, jails, and prisons.

Mitchell and Caudy (2015) provided the rates of drug-related arrests for African-

Americans versus Caucasians and include some information regarding Hispanics,

pointing out that following the new War on Drugs initiation, those numbers more than

doubled for minorities, but not nearly as much for Caucasians, indicating clear racial

disparities. The authors then provide the details of three explanations for the racial

inequalities in drug arrests. The first one is the extent of drug related offenses by race.

Due to the rising racial inequalities and de-industrialization, minorities were more

vulnerable to using, addiction, and dealing as a means to support their families. The

second explanation focuses on the socioeconomics of drug-offending. Minorities are

more likely to live in poorer socioeconomic areas with heavy involvement of gangs and

police surveillance, which might explain the increase of arrests in those urban-city

areas. The last explanation is that the racial inequalities in the arrests can be attributed

to racial bias by the police. The authors reference the author of “The New Jim Crow”,
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Michelle Alexander, because she argued that the new policies expanded police

decision-making regarding who they could stop, search, and arrest and their own racial

bias whether purposeful or not, weighs heavily on those decisions. Mitchell and Caudy

then reference several studies where racial stereotyping was prevalent and indicated

that many participants described a black person when told to think of a drug user or

dealer. The authors then provide empirical support of the three explanations by utilizing

statistics gathered through the 2000’s. They did find that African-American youths were

less likely to use drugs than Caucasian youths, but that African-American adults were at

least 25% more likely to use drugs than that of Caucasians. They conclude that the

research indicates African-Americans over the age of 25 have a drug dependence rate

about 120% higher than whites with a 260% drug arrest rate than whites. They also

conclude that African-Americans are twice as likely to purchase drugs outside, in the

open and from strangers, lending support to the nature explanation. Last the third

explanation, racial bias of police, is difficult to test as there are no specific methods of

gathering accurate statistics, but likely to be a cause of the higher rates of arrest for

minorities. In conclusion, the authors found support for the different explanations, but

still point out that while it is possible minorities are more likely to offend, there is nothing

saying that they actually do.

One research article titled “Disparities in Criminal Court Referrals to Drug

Treatment and Prison for Minority Men” was authored by Nancy Nicosia, John Mac

Donald, and Jeremy Arkes , further describes these disparities by taking a closer look at

inequalities in the sentencing to drug treatment both before and after California

Proposition 36, which sought to offer drug treatment rather than incarceration if an
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individual had less than three convictions and no history or violence. During their

research, they came to the same conclusion as the other studies where although there

are theories about why minorities, especially African-Americans, were incarcerated at

much higher rates than whites, there is no singular explanation other than taking into

account that they have an increased likelihood to be arrested since they’re more likely

to be poor and located in higher-crime therefore higher-policed areas. Using data

collected from the California crime reporting system, they were able to conclude that

prior to the passage of Proposition 36, African-Americans were more than two times as

likely to be sentenced to prison rather than to drug treatment for lower-level drug

offenses including possession as compared to Caucasians and Hispanics were also

more likely to be sent to prison, but to the extent of African-Americans. Compiling the

same data after the implementation of Proposition 36, they found that the disparities

between Caucasians and Hispanics had decreased, the new law had nearly no impact

at all for African-Americans The authors ultimately concluded that due to of having all of

the factors, the racial disparities are no all accounted for with the theories, however

since the disparities between Caucasians and Hispanics are reduced with the

introduction of Proposition 36, similar policies and not like those from the War on Drugs

might help to reduce or eliminate the disparities between African-Americans and

Caucasians.

Veronique Rugy, author of “How the War on Drugs Fails Black Communities”

which was published in July 2016 in Reason, offers a different perspective of the

different ways the War on Drugs impacted the African-Americans. She explains that the

criminalization and illegality of drugs makes them more profitable and therefore the
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drug-selling business is more desirable for black men because of their already existent

difficulties with finding education, employment and job skills that could otherwise

support their families and claims that the this drug war has exacerbated the problem

making it a perpetual issue. She indicated that the War on Drugs policies make it more

desirable for younger African-American men to bypass the lower paying regular

employment for the illegal sales of drugs instead. She briefly discusses the statistics of

African-Americans incarcerated for nonviolent, lower-level drug offenses and the

alarming high rate of single-parent households in the African-American communities as

well as the significantly higher rates of lower-income African-American families affected.

The author also points out an effect of the policies which is new, is forfeiting of property,

which gives police the ability to seize any property that they say is connected to illegal

activities and they don’t have to be charged with a crime for this to happen ad points out

that minorities are often disproportionately targeted. She cites research and analysis of

cases by Oklahoma Watch that also found that police officers, consciously or not, use

racial profiling to determine which vehicles to search and whose assets to seize.

The incarceration of minorities is on the decline, but that doesn’t appear to be

related to successes of the War on Drugs. One journalist, Eli Hager, of The Washington

Post wrote an article titled “A Mass Incarceration Mystery” in 2017, outlining the

conclusions of his research into the subject. Using analysis of the annual reports from

the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Hager points out that the racial inequity in

incarceration between African-Americans and whites has decreased significantly since

2000. He explains that this has occurred due to the drastic decline in African-

Americans being incarcerated and virtually no change or rising numbers for whites.
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Talking to experts in the field including law professor, John Pfaff, the indication is that

other than the actual numbers, no one really knows why this is happening, but they

want to find out. After completing significant amounts of research on the topic, Hager

compiled four different theories as to why this occurring in the United States. The first

theory is that crime and subsequent arrests and incarceration are declining overall. The

second theory is that the War on Drugs is now focused on methamphetamine and

opioids rather than crack and marijuana like it has before. The third theory given is the

declining socioeconomic opportunity for whites which tends to increase involvement in

crime. The last theory given is that the numbers are due to criminal justice reform

occurring in urban cities, where more African-Americans live. The author concludes the

article by explaining that despite the previously mentioned decline in African-American

incarceration, the American prison system is continuing to cause significant distress in

the African-American and Latino communities.

While it is true that arrests of minorities have seemingly decreased in recent

years the policies and sentencing laws for drug offenders have continued to effect

incarceration rates in the United States. One could argue that if someone does the

crime they should do the time, but at what cost? There are much larger effects on the

individual, families, and communities that must be considered including the way this

War on Drugs has impacted individuals’ access to basic human needs and rights such

as voting. By choosing to target criminalization rather than treatment with the War on

Drugs, the United States has created more systemic racism, ravished minority families

and communities, and punished drug abusers with an addiction problem rather than
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assisted them with addressing the underlying issue. This has led to prison

overcrowding and a crisis that effects all Americans.

Works Cited

ACLU.org. American Civil Liberties Union. https://www.aclu.org/. Accessed 1 March

2019. https://www.aclu.org/blog/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/war-drugs-war-

women-and-families

“Drug Arrest Rate per 100,000”. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States:

Exploring Causes and Consequences, 2014.

https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/1#ii. Accessed 28 March 2019.

Drugpolicy.org. Drug Policy Alliance, 2000. http://www.drugpolicy.org/. Accessed 2

March 2019.

Hager, Eli. “A Mass Incarceration Mystery.” Washington Post, 15 December 2017.

Accessed from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/15/a-

mass-incarceration-mystery/?utm_term=.9fb9f25cb414

Hager, Eli, and Keller, Bill. “Everything You Think You Know About Mass Incarceration

Is Wrong”, TheMarshallProject.org, 9 February 2017. Accessed from

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/02/09/everything-you-think-you-know-

about-mass-incarceration-is-wrong

Mauer, M., and R. S. King. “25-Year Quagmire: The War on Drugs & Its Impact on

American Society”, 2007. EBSCOhost,

sinclair.ohionet.org:80/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=

true&db=i3h&AN=CJA0400020000812&site=eds-live.
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Mitchell, Ojmarrh, and Caudy, Michael S.. “Examining Racial Disparities in Drug

Arrests.” JQ: Justice Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 288–313.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/07418825.2012.761721.

Nicosia, Nancy, et al. “Disparities in Criminal Court Referrals to Drug Treatment and

Prison for Minority Men.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 103, no. 6, June

2013, pp. e77–e84. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301222.

Rugy, Veronique de. “How the War on Drugs Fails Black Communities”. Reason, 14

July 2016. Accessed from https://reason.com/archives/2016/07/14/how-the-war-

on-drugs-fails-black-communi

Schroeder, Karina. “How Systemic Racism Keeps Millions of Black People from Voting”.

Vera.org, 16 February 2018. Accessed from https://www.vera.org/blog/how-

systemic-racism-keeps-millions-of-black-people-from-voting